What’s Next For The #BlackLivesMatter Movement [VIDEO]

In the wake of the Department of Justice’s scathing report on the Ferguson Police Department and their racially biased procedures, Roland Martin, host of “NewsOne Now” shared his perspective on what the next steps in the #BlackLivesMatter Movement should be.

Thank you for subscribing! Please be sure to open and click your first newsletter so we can confirm your subscription.

Email

Martin told viewers of TV One’s morning news show, “We can’t simply get emotional, be upset, be mad based upon what we saw in the report from the Department of Justice.” According to Martin, we should all pay attention to what is happening in our own local police departments.

“We can put all the attention on Ferguson … but there are numerous Fergusons all across the country. So the question then becomes how are we holding our police chiefs accountable, our city managers, our mayors, our elected officials.”

The emphatic “NewsOne Now” host highlighted the fact that there is an election coming up in Ferguson next week and questioned how many people would turn out to participate.

Martin then turned his focus to the various individuals who traveled to Ferguson to protest, hold news conferences and to participate in television and radio interviews about 18-year-old Mike Brown. “Have they gone back to talk about how do you mobilize and organize folks to vote,” Martin asked.

He also highlighted the abysmal Black voter turnout in Chicago for their mayoral election saying. “The exact same thing is happening in Chicago on April 7. There is a runoff election and there are 700k African Americans in that city and less than 150k voted in the initial election.”

“Are civil rights leaders, NAACP, National Urban League, National Action Network and so many others — are they going down to Chicago to say how do we mobilize and organize people to get out to vote,” Martin continued.

Martin then began to layout what we must do in order to start forcing change in our communities.

In order for us to change this system, it requires folks to stay in their lane.”

“Lawyers have a lane, activists have a lane, corporate folks have a lane, entrepreneurs have a lane, media folks have a lane … when it comes to staying in your lane, it means you must drive.”

“That means you must [actually be] moving down the path to progress and so we should be challenging people to change the laws, to create special prosecutors anytime a cop is involved in a shooting.”

“It means us changing the grand jury proceedings as well. It means us making sure you have to get legislative changes in addition to simply protesting.

Martin who believes people should take their concerns to the street and protest added, “It can’t be just disruptive, it can’t be just we’re gonna block a freeway. If you block the freeway on Monday, my question is what’s the policy change on Tuesday?”

Watch “NewsOne Now” host Roland Martin’s commentary discussing what is next for the #BlackLivesMatter movement in the video clip above.

Are you prepared to stay in your respective lane and drive towards progress in order to impact change in your community?